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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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NATIONAL UNION, 



Test of American Loyalty, 



AN HISTORICAL DISCOURSE, 



N'OVEMBER 24tii, 18G4, 



By GEORGE DUFP^IELD, Jk., 

Pastor of the First Presbyterian Oliurcli, Adrian, Midi. 



( PUBLISHED BY REQUEST. ) 



j Sit demqtie inscriplum infronte unius cujusque, quid de Republicn sentiat.— ViceroCaHl. 1, XIII 



DETROIT: 

PUBLISHED BY FRANCIS RAYMOND, 120 JEFFERSON AVENUE 
1864. 



NATIONAL UNION, 



Test of American Loyalty. 



AN HISTORICAL DISCOURSE, 



NOVEMBER 24Tn, 1864, 



By GEORGE DUFFIELD, Jk. 

Pastor of the First Presbyterian Ctmrcli, Adrian, Mich. 



( PUBLISHED BY REQUEST. ) 



Sit dentque inscriptum infronte uniuscujusque, quid de Republica senliat.— CieeroCatil. 1, XJJJ 



DETEOIT: 

PUBLISHED BY FRANCIS RAYMOND, 120 JEFFERSON AVENUE. 
1864. 



iA:' •» 



^i ^ 



"In his opening speech, Mr. Hamilton obferved, that 
it is of the utmost importance that the Convention 
lliould be ftrongly impressed witli the conviction of the 
necessity of the Union of the States. If they could be 
entirely satisfied of that great truth, dieir minds would 
then be prepared to admit the necessity of a govern- 
ment of similar organization and powers with the 
scheme of the one before them, to uphold and preferve 
that Union. It was like the case of the doctrine of 
the immortality of the soul, and doubts on that subject 
were one great cause, he said, of modern infidelity; for 
if men could be thoroughly convinced that they had 
within them immaterial and immortal fpirits, their minds 
would be prepared for the ready reception of the Chrif- 
tian religion." — Chancellor Kent. 



ASTEBTISBB AND TRIB0KK PRINT, DBTBOIT. 



OUR NATIONAL UNION, 



* * * " And I will reftore thy judges as at the firft, 
and ^thy counsellors as at the beginning : afterward, thou fhalt be 
called THE City of Righteousness." — Isaiah, i, 26. 

We liave now at least three great National anni- 
versaries : the birth, day of Washington, the day that 
witnessed the Declaration of Independence, and the 
day of National Thanksgiving; one in the winter, 
one in the summer, and one in the autumn. To 
these, I believe, we will soon add a fourth, the great- 
est and most welcome of all, and that which will 
give new value and significance to all the rest: the 
day of Final Victoey over Eebellton ! 

The present anniversary is that of Thanksgiving. 
We are here this morning by the Proclamation of the 
President to acknowledge, as citizens of the United 
States, the various mercies which we have received 
during the past year from the "God of our Fathers." 
Your speaker himself is also here as a citizen as well, 
as a minister of the Gospel, and as such, is by com- 
mon consent, both allowed and expected to choose 
such a topic as may be most appropriate to the cir- 



4 AilERICAN LOYALTY. 

cumstances of the case, and the best good of tlie^ 
Commonwealtli. 

Professing as a cliristian to know no politics but 
those that come from God, and as a citizen, to know only 
those that come from Union ; within these limits he 
dares to speak freely and boldly all that is in his 
heart. With all this idle talk that we sometimes 
hear about " driving men from the Church " by 
preaching the truth, either religious or political, he 
has no sympathy whatever. It is neither manly nor 
christian. As a hearer I would not be driven by 
the preacher ; and certainly, as a preacher, I will not 
be driven as to what I must or must not say, by the 
people. This pulpit in which I now stand is a Feee 
Pulpit. As such I received it from my predecessor, 
Mr. Curtis,* and as a free pulpit, I will, by the help 
of God, hand it down to him who comes after me,, 
if it be necessary so to do, to-morrow. 

"What this topic ougTit to be to-day admits but 
very little doubt. The great and all-absorbing idea 
of the American people during the last year, in the 
Army and in the Navy, in the pulpit and in the 
press, in the country and in the city, in the house 
and in the rail car, wherever men have written or 
spoken, or engaged in earnest conversation, or sung^ 
has been Loyalty ! And, as in England, the feelings 
of loyalty centre not in the Constitution, nor in the 
Prime Minister, but in the Queen; so in America, 
these feelings centre, not in the President, nor even 
in the Constitution, but in the Union. What the 



Rev. Geo. C. Curtis, D.D., Elmira, N. Y. 



AMERICAN LOYALTY. 

Queen is to tlie loyalty of an Englishman, the Union 
is to the loyalty of an American,* It is even more, 
THE Union is our Country. While it lives in our 
bosom the Country lives ! When it dies, like poor 
Kossuth, waiting the resurrection of Hungary, we are 
orphans and fatherless, and have no country, f 

Loyalty, then, our theme, our discussion of it will 
be mainly with reference to our National Union. 

To enter as thoroughly into this topic as I desire 
on this occasion, to investigate the origin and history 
of our Union, and reveal its inner life^ is no easy 
task. Others may have been more fortunate than 
myself in this respect, and have found elsewhere all 
that I shall now say, already done to their hand. If 
so, I shall be much obliged to any one who will tell 
me what that volume is. Though a thousand, times 
expecting to find such an historical sketch as the pres- 
ent, just as often have I been disappointed. One 
writer is a mere annalist, like Ramsay, and contents 
himself with the bare facts; while another, like Cal- 
houn, is a mere theorizer, and has as little to do with 
facts as possible ; one man, like Hildreth, writes a 
strictly documentary history, and another, like Judge 
Kent, or Story, looks at the subject in an entirely 
legal point of view ; and so it comes to pass that to 
the student of history, on this particular point, there 
is nothing but what is fragmentary ; he must get his 
knowledge from a great variety of different sources 
if he gets it at all. The only place where I ever 
^expect to see it will be the ninth volume of Bancroft. 



* CiTil Liberty, by F. Lieber, LL. D., page 361. 
t Appendix A^ 



b AMERICAN LOYALTY. 

Meanwhile I throw myself on your mercy, if with 
the limited means at my disposal, I gain the credit 
awarded by Gen. Sherman to Mr. Lincoln, and " do 
the best I can." 

OuE National Union, then, a word in every 
mouth, what does it mean when we come to analyze 
it ? Will it bear such analysis ? What is it in its 
origin ? What in its history ? What in its relations ? 
What in the various changes through which it has 
passed ? What the secret of its strength during the 
progress of this unexampled war? What the value 
and significance of it at the present moment? 

In answer to these inquiries, my first position is 
that our National Union is something purely of its 
OWN kind. 

Not in the way of boasting do I affirm it, but as 
a matter of plain, historical fact, it is -altogether 
different from any previous National Union in the 
world, either in ancient times or modern; it is abso- 
lutely unique — no copy — but an original! no imita- 
tion, but an actual discovery or invention ! 

fl. It is not like the Aciiaian League in the latter 
days of Greece, for the simple reason, that anxious 
as the founders of our Union were to make a prac- 
tical use of ancient precedents, they had, confessedly, 
but little knowledge as to what those precedents 
really were. * 

2. It is not like the Confederation of the Swiss 



* " Could the inner strueturo and regular operation of the Achaian League be 
ascertained, it is probable that more light would be thrown by it on the science of 
Federal Government than by any of the like experiments with which we are 
acquainted." — Federalist, xviii. 



AMERICAN LOYALTY. / 

Cantons, whicli, witli many changes in its extent and 
constitution, has lasted from the thirteenth century 
down to our own day, but which in no true sense 
whatever has "been a Kepublic. 

3. It is not like the Seven United States of the 
Netheelands, that illustrious predecessor of ours, from 
whom with so much of its indomitable spirit we bor- 
rowed our very name; whose Union arose in the war 
of Independence against Spain, and lasted in a 
Republican form till the war of the French Revo- 
lution. 

When to these three Federal Commonwealths you 
add the United States as a Fourth, you have, then, 
the only four famous Federal Commonwealths of the 
world. 

To form a Federal Government, in which, on the 
one hand, each of the members of the Union must be 
"wholly independent in those matters which concern 
each member only ; and, on the other hand, all must 
be subject to a common power in matters which con- 
cern the whole body of members collectively" — 
so to combine the centrifugal and centripetal forces 
as to secure a steady and uniform orbit — is 
not so easy an achievement as modern dem- 
agogues would have us to suppose, " Rev. Prof. 
Johnson, of Missouri," at the Chicago Convention, for 
example. Hear him : " If it shall be necessary in the 
settlement of our difficulties to allow a few stars to 
hecome a constellation by themselves^ I think we can 
be just as safe, just as well protected, and just as 
happy under a Union of Itepiihlics as we have been 
under a Union of States. I want to see this whole 



AMERICAIN^ LOYALTY. 



■Continent hound together hy a grand Union of 
Mepnhlics ! " Whatever other chair may be occupied 
by this Keverend Professor, it is sincerely to be hoped 
for the good of his pupils, that it is not the chair 
of the "Science of Law and Government." The 
very first proposition that meets him there, is, that a 
National Union such as ours, in its highest and most 
elaborate development, is the most finished and most 
artificial production of human ingenuity. As wisely 
and with as much reason might he carry out his 
figure literally, and say that the solar system would 
move on as safely and harmoniously after the seces- 
sion of half a dozen planets. This idea of Union, 
at least, in common with that of Vallandigham — first 
repudiated by his own State, and then by the entire 
country — is certainly open to revision and amendment. 
The personal defeat of these men, for a time, would 
-afibrd us but very little satisfaction indeed if we sup- 
posed that they would still continue to advocate, and 
endeavor to engraft into the platform of a party the 
same infamous principles. Now that the election is 
•over we can all of us afford to look this question fairly 
in the face — whether there is such a thing as loyalty, 
whether there is in reality such a crime as disloyalty, 
or whether it is only a " new crime " got up by an 
expiring Administration ! 

II. My second position is, that our Union came 
into existence gradually and unexpectedly. 

As a nation it must be confessed that we had a 
very humble origin, and that the few "colonies of 
outcasts in North America, scattered along the coast," 
began their existence under very unpropitious circum- 



AMERICAN LOYALTY. 9 

stances. It is almost ludicrons, at this date, to open 
some of the old books of travels, that have come 
down to us, and see how times have altered. In 
1*759, a clergyman of the name of Burnaby, landed 
at Yorktown, Virginia, and traveled as far North as 
Portsmouth, New Hampshire. " The inhabitants 
being of diflerent nations, different religions, different 
languages, it is almost impossible to give them any 
precise and determinate character." Closing his vol- 
ume with some speculations on the future of Amer- 
ica, his sagacious conclusion is, that " these several 
communities must always be helpless and dependent, 
formed for happiness, perhaps, but not formed for 
Mmpire or Union.'''' 

Thirty years before, we have an official communi- 
cation to the same effect made to the Home Govern- 
ment by the famous Hutchinson,* So said they all, 
and apparently with good reason. Swede and 
Dutchman, Cavalier and Puritan, Protestant Massa- 
chusetts and Catholic Maryland, ever in one common 
Union — the thing was impossible! But Hutchinson 
lived long enough to see that he was mistaken ! 

in. My third position is, that our Union was at 
first a Social Union. 

Bearing in mind that the settlements were for a 



* " From the universal loyalty of the people, it is absurd to imagine they have 
any thoughts of independence. Not more absurd would it be to place two of His 
Majesty's beef-eaters to watch a child in the cradle, that it do not rise and cut its 
father's throat, than to guard these infant colonies to prevent their shaking off the 
British yoke. Besides, they are so distinct from one another in their forms of 
government, in their religious rites, in their emulation of trade, and consequently 
their affections, that they ntver can unite in so dangerous an enterprise." — Yolvmc 
II, p. 118. 



10 AMERICAN LOYALTY. 

long time merely on the coast, and did not extend 
back to the mountains, it is easy to see that there 
was nothing to prevent free intercourse in the way 
of traveling and business. In 1710, by act of Par- 
liament, a continuous mail route was oiganized on 
the sea-board, and from that moment the first great 
impulse was given to the Press. But even before 
the press, there was a still more potent influence at 
work to aid and develope the growth of this Social 
Union in the Pilgrim Pulpit. As early, too, as 1671 
George Fox, the founder of the Society of Friends, 
landed in America, and left behind him "joyful 
hearts in the several Colonies," from New England 
to Georgia. So Wesley and Whitfield, and various 
others at a still later period, were engaged in setting 
up the telegraph poles and running the wire of chris- 
tian communion all over the wilderness — the sure 
precursor of National Union. Take away Protestant 
Christianity and you have no cementing principle 
whatever ! " 

IV. My fourth position is, that this j)reciou3 seed 
of Union thus beginning to germinate, was next a 
CIVIL Union. The Social Union had so matured that 
political Union became a natural suggestion. 

Its first development in this form was in 1643, 
when the Colonies of Massachusetts, Connecticut, 
Plymouth and New Haven solemnly agreed " that as 
in nation and relation, so in other respects, we be 
and continue one, by the name and title of the 



* For a full discussion of this point see an article by the author in the Presby- 
terian Quarterly, December, 1852. 



AMERICAN LOYALTY. 11 

United Colonies of New England." The reasons 
assigned for this Union were the dispersed state of 
the Colonies, the dangers apprehended from the Dutch 
and Indians, the commencement of civil contests in 
the parent country, and above all, " the preserving 
and propagating the truths and liberties of the 
Gospel." 

The next development of this civil Union was in 
1754, when the Convention of twenty -three commis- 
sioners, chosen by the Assemblies, and commissioned 
by the Crown, met at Albany to devise a concert of 
action against the French and Indians. One of the 
Commissioners was the sagacious Franklin. While 
the Lords of Trade were aiming at a Union that was 
merely temporary, in the mind of Franklin the desh'e 
for Union " assumed still more majestic proportions," 
and comprehended " the great country back of the 
Apalachian mountains." '' In less than a century," 
said he, " it must undoubtedly become a populous and 
powerful dominion." It was all important that it 
should be a united one. " William Penn in 1697 
had proposed an annual Congress of all the Provinces 
on the Continent of America, with power to regu- 
late commerce. Franklin revived the great idea, and 
breathed into it enduring life. As he descended the 
Hudson the people of New York thronged about him 
to welcome him, and he who had first entered their 
city as a runaway apprentice, was revered as the 
mover of the American Union."* 

This honor, however, he can well afford to divide 



Bancroft) IV, 125. 



12 AMERICAN LOYALTY. 

in no stinted measure with his personal friend and 
associate in the Albany Convention, James Bowdoin, 
the noble old Revolutionary Governor, who stood out 
among the Governors of his day as the Governors of 
Indiana and Massachusetts do in ours, and who was 
Chairman of the Committee of Seven, to consider 
and report " a general plan of Union of the several 
Colonies on this Continent." * 

True, the Albany plan of Union was only condi- 
tional, and the conditions failing, it was never carried 
into effect. But the friends of the measure were 
willmg to bide their time. " However necessary an 
Union may be for the mutual safety and preservation 
of these Colonies, it is certain it will never take 
place unless we are forced to it by the supreme 
authority of the nation." Ten years after this the 
^Stamp Act Congress met in Philadelphia ; the Union 
was taking visible form. Ten years more and the 
Port-bill Congress was in session in New York; and 
the Union was still more embodied. 

Meanwhile the people had learned to say with 
Christopher Gadsden, of South Carohna, "There ought 



* In a speech of Bowdoin, delivered at that time, and still extant in his own 
handwriting, we find the following memorable words : 

" It seems to be generally allowed that a Union of some sort is necessary. If 
hat be granted the only question to be considered is, whether the Union shall be 
general or partial. It has been my opinion, and still is, that a general Union 
would he the most salutary. If the Colonies were united they could easily drive 
the French out of this part of America, but in a disunited State, the French, 
though not half so numerous, are an over-match for them. They are under one 
head and one direction, and all pull one way ; whereas, the Colonies have no head, 
some of them are under no direction in military matters, and all pull different ways» 
Join or die, must be their motto." — Winthrop's Oration, 



AMERICAN LOYALTY. IS 

to be no New England man, no New Yorker, known 
on the Continent, but all of us Americans." And 
with Patrick Henry, "The distinctions between Vir- 
ginians, Pennsylvanians, New Yorkers, and New Eng- 
landers are no more. I am not a Virginian, but an 
American." Their earnest, universal desire was that 
of Otis, for " a Union that should knit and work into 
the very blood and bones of the original system,, 
in every region as fast as settled." The language of 
Congress, in their address to the inhabitants of the 
Colonies, was as natural as it was appropriate: "We 
have been authorized and directed to meet and con- 
sult together about our Common Country." 

Assailed by common enemies, and occupying a com- 
mon soil, already a Nation in fact, it only remained to 
become one in form. Hence, the third great epoch in. 
the development of our Union, the ever memorable Dec- 
LARATioN, July 4th, 1776. The flower that has been 
maturing for more than a century, now bursts its 
petals and scatters its fragrance through an entire 
hemisphere. "Colonies are the foundations of 
GREAT Commonwealths," said the General Court of 
Massachusetts to Parliament in 1646, and so it proved. 
Independence is declared. 

Declared by whom? By the representatives of 
the Colonies, severally^ or as a Confederation? No! 
But "by the representatives of the United States 
in Congress assembled!" Declared in whose name? 
In the name of the people of the several Colonies or 
States? No! but in the name and by the authority 
of " the good jpeople of these United States." De- 
clared for what purpose? That they might define 



14 AMERICAN LOYALTY. 

the relation of the States to one another? Nothing 
of the kind. For what, then? It was that they 
might be recognized as "One People." What else- 
"That they might dissolve the political bands that 
had connected them with another people." And 
still, what else? "That they might assume among 
the powers of the earth the separate and equal sta- 
tion to which the laws of Nature and of Nature's 
God entitled them." 

Renouncing all claims to chartered rights as Eng- 
lishmen, henceforth the Declaration is their charter ! 
Their rights, the natural rights of mankind! * Their 
Union, that of those who " hold as self-evident truths, 
that ALL MEN" AEE CREATED EQUAL, that they are en- 
dowed by their Creator with certain unalienable 
rights; and that among these are life, liberty, and 
the pursuit of happiness ! " Their Government such as 
should be founded on these self-evident truths, and cor- 
respond with such a Union ! The Great Witness of the 
rectitude of their intentions, "the Supreme Judge of 
the world!" Their great Palladium, the protection of 
"Di\T.ne Providence!" 

Here, then, at length, you reach the true and 



* " All men have one common original : they participate in one common nature 
they have one common right." 

" Natural liberty is a gift of the benificent Creator to the whole human race ; 
civil liberty is founded on it; civil liberty is only natural ^liberty, modified and 
secured by civil society." 

" The sacred eights of mankind are not to be rummaged for among 
parchments or musty records ; they are written as with a sunbeam, in the 
whole volume of human nature, by the hand of the divinity himself, and 
can never be erased or obscured by mortal power." 

Such was the doctrine of Alexander Hamilton, to whom belongs the immortal 
honor of being " the first to perceive and develope the idea of a real Union of the 
people of the United States." — Curtis' History of the Constitution, I, p. 413. 



AMERICAN LOYALTY. 15 

■original idea of National Union, as it was found in 
the minds of our Fathers, who pledged to its support 
"their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor!" 

One People ! One Goveenment ! One Liberty ! 

One People ! Every man a citizen of the Repub- 
lic. One Government! Every man alike entitled to 
the protection and subject to the claims of its Flag! 
One Liberty! Every citizen a Freeman. 

Suck a definition of Union as [this, everywhere 
secured, and the Constitution strictly framed in 
accordance vnth. it, and God alone can tell what 
rivers of blood and tears the nation might have been 
saved. 

We have seen how the social Union became a civil 
Union, let us now see how the civil Union became a 
legal one. 

Really, and in point of fact, the Old Continental 
Congress was "a voluntary Congress, and no more." 
"No snchlL^nwii then existed as in the language of 
law to constitute a State." * The first treaty with 
France, February 6th, 1778, is between the King and 
the Thirteen States, all their names given in order, 
and this single exception that Arch Fiend of Rebellion^ 
Jefferson Davis^ seizes upon and affirms that it is the 
universal rule. The one, united people had as yet 
no Government! During six long years the war of 
Independence raged with unabated fury, and the Union 
was yet no more than a mutual pledge of faith, and 
a mutual participation of common sufferings and com- 
mon dangers. 



* Horace Binney, Esq., as quoted by Prof. Lieber. 



16 AMERICAN LOYALTY. 

" In the enthusiasm of their first spontaneous^ 
unstipulated, unpremeditated Union, they had flattered 
themselves that no General Government would be 
required." * * '^ "They relaxed their Union into 
a le.ague of friendship between sovereign and inde- 
pendent States." * * * "There was thus, no con- 
geniality of principle between the Declaration of 
Independence and the Articles of Confederation." 
"The Fabric of the Declaration and of the Confede- 
ration, were each consistent with its own foundation, 
but they could not form one consistent, symmetrical edi- 
fice. The corner-stone of one was Right; the rights 
of man and a superintending Providence. That of the 
other was Powee ; the sovereignty of organized power, 
and the independence of the separate States. The 
Union languished to the point of death." * 

Everywhere the faces of the friends of freedom 
gathered blackness at the prospect. Even Washing- 
ton himself could scarcely hold fast to the great prin- 
ciple which had always been his guiding star, Never 
TO DESPAIR OF THE REPUBLIC ! In a letter to James 
Madison, November 6th, 1786, he says: "No morn 
ever dawned more favorably than ours did ; and no 
day was ever more clouded than the present. * * 
Without an alteration in our political creed the super- 
structure we have been seven years in raising, at the 
expense of so much treasure and blood, must fall. 
We are fast verging to anarchy and confusion." 

But in the midst of the darkness a ray of hght 
appears. Pelatiah Webster, in 1V81, published a pam- 



* J. Q. Adams' Jubilee of the ConBtitution. 



AMERICAN LOYALTY. 1 7 

phlet proposing "a Greneral Convention to- remodel the 
Confederation." New York, Massachusetts and Vir- 
ginia take it np in their Legishitures, and at length a 
Convention of Delegates from eleven of the Thirteen 
States assembles, with George Washington at their 
head! 

Would you see what a Herculean task they had 
to perform? Look at the Federalist. Would you 
see the difficulties they had to encounter? Look 
especially at that number in which they are de- 
scribed by Madison. Would you know how they 
felt? Listen to the words of Hamilton: "A 
nation without a national government is an awful 
spectacle. The establishment of a Constitution in 
time of profound peace, by the voluntary consent of 
a whole people, is a Prodigy, to the completion of 
which I look forward with trembling anxiety!" 

Four plans were before them: 

1. C o:N^soLrDATiO]sr ; the dissolution of thirteen Pro- 
vincial or State Governments, and a general amalga- 
mation under one republican character. — This was out 
of the question ; the Colonies would not consent to 
merge their individual existence in a single organiza- 
tion. — 2. Consolidation in the form of a Pure Democ- 
racy. — This would require the assembling of the 
whole body of citizens, and could exist only in a 
very limited territory. 3, The organizing of thirteen 
entirely Independent Governments. — This would be 
the sure precursor of wars interminable. 4. A sim- 
ple Confederation of Thii-teen Sovereignties. — Such 
a confederacy already existed, and its inadequacy was 
2 



18 AMERIOAN" LOYALTY. 

matter of bitter experience. * The Government of 
tlie Nation is at a dead lock. What now? Hear 
again tlie old man eloquent: "A work in wliich 
the people of the North American Union, act- 
ing under the deepest sense of resj)onsibility to the 
Supreme Pv^uler of the Universe, achieved the most 
transcendent act of power, that social man in his 
mortal condition can perform. Even that of dis- 
solving the ties of allegiance by which he is bound to 
his country; of renouncing the country itself; of 
demolishing its government; of instituting another 
government; and of making for himself another 
country in its stead." 

Hear De Tocqueville, in the highest compliment 
ever paid to our Nation : 

" If America ever approached, ( for however brief 
a time, ) that lofty pinnacle of glory to which the 
proud fancy of its inhalntants is wont to point, it 
was at the solemn moment at which the power of 
the nation abdicated, as it were, the empire of the 
land. '• * '' It is a novelty in the history of 
Society to see a great people turn a calm and scru- 
tinizing eye upon itself when apprized that the wheels 
of Government had stopped, to see it carefully examine 
the extent of the evil, and patiently wait for two 
whole years, until a remedy was discovered, which it 
voluntarily adopted Avithout ha™g wrung a tear or a 
drop of l)lood from mankind." 

Hear Mr. Madison : 

"We undertook to accomplish that which had 
always before ])een believed impossible." 



* Thanksgiving Sermon of H. A. Boirdman, D. D. — passim. 



AMERICAN LOYALTY. 19 

And how did they accomplish it? As men who 
had lost tlieir waj, they retraced their steps to the 
Declaration! Like a Phoenix from its ashes, on the 
ruins of the Confederation arises the Constitution! 
With the help of God, what was before deemed 
impossible is now possible, and the prodigy appears. 
The new principle needed to meet the exigencies of 
the case is discovered. It is found in that of a Rep- 

EESENTATIVE REPUBLIC. "E PlURIBUS UnUM " haS 

now a double significance: From many races, one 
people! From many States, one Nation! 

To see the true spirit of the frainers of the Con- 
stitution, read the official letter of the President, Gen- 
eral Washington, in submitting it to Congress: "In 
all our deliberations on this subject, we kept steadily 
in our view that which appears to us the greatest 
interest of every true American, the Consolidation of 
Our IJjsrioisr, in which is involved our prosperity, 
felicity, safety, perhaps our national existence." 

To see the true spirit of the Constitution itself, 
you need go no further than the short, but sublime 
Pkeaj[ble : 

"We, the People of the United States, in order to 
form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure 
domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defence, 
promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings 
of Liberty to ourselves and to our posterity, do 
ordain and establish this Constitution for the United 
States of America." 

The Constitution exists for the Union, not the 
Union for the Constitution! 

"We, The People of the United States, do ordain 



20 AMERICAN" LOYALTY. 

and establish this Constitution!" To me, as well as 
to others, the most magnificent words in all history; 
like an entrance full of grandeur and simplicity into 
a wide temple. It is the -whole Nation that speaks 
in the full majesty of its power. 

"Why "we, the People?" was the indignant chal- 
lenge of the old Virginia Federalist? That means 
"that there must be one great Consolidated National 
Government of the People of all the States!" Of 
course it does. "Why not?" was the rejoinder of 
Gov. Randolph, "The Government is for the peo- 
ple, and the misfortune was that, previously, the 'peojple 
had no agency in the Government ! " 

V. Thus, then, when we come to the last analysis of 
the term Union, it is the Union of the People ; 
"an ideal nation," if you will, according to De Toc- 
queville, "which only exists in the mind," but which, 
on this account, is all the more potent and compre- 
hensive.* In short, the Union is the historic root 
OP the Nation ; it is its Organic Life. The Union 
IS Our Country. 

It would be interesting to pursue this subject at 
least two steps further: 

VI. To show] that it is a geographical Union, f 

VII. That it is a religious Union. 



* "In examing the Constitution of the United States, which is the most perfect 
Federal Constitution that ever existed, one is startled at the variety of its informa- 
tion and the excellence of discretion, which it presupposes in the people it is meant 
to govern. The Government of the Union depends entirely upon legal fictions j 
the Union is an ideal nation which only exists in the mind, and whose limits and 
extent can only be discerned by the understanding." — Democracy in America 
page 176. . 

t Harper's Magazine, February, 1863, p. 413. 



AMERICAN LOYALTY. 21 

"Whether Britain would have had any colonies in 
America, if religion had not been the grand induce- 
ment, is doubtful," says the historian Hutchinson. 
"To the Bible do we mainly owe our national liber- 
ties," said Daniel Webster; and similar was the lan- 
guage of Andrew Jackson, on his death -bed: "That 
book, sir, is the rock on which our Republic rests; 
the bulwark of our free Institutions." 

Waiviuof, however, the further consideration of 
these points, in view of the outline sketch as thus 
presented; I remark, by way of application: 

1. How grateful ought we this day to be to 
Almighty God, that he has given us such a Union, 
and that we have so much reason to believe that it 
is the woEK OF God, and not the work of man; 
repeating, as it were, the only form of Government 
he has ever condescended to bestow upon a nation. 
This is a subject on which I have always felt 
deeply and earnestly, but never so strongly, never 
so intensely, as since this wae foe the Union 
began ; and especially during the last year. 

Sometimes, when I have thought of this Union, as 
"reached only by the discipline of our virtues in the 
severe school of adversity," I have compared it to a 
diamond, originally in the rough, but in the skilful 
hands of the Divine Lapidary, cut and polished in all 
its parts and proportions, until it was at length revealed 
to the eyes of an astonished world as a brilliant of 
the first water and the first magnitude. 

At other times, when I have thous^ht of it as 
traversing our entire history from 1620, and Ply- 
mouth Rock, even down to the present moment, I have 



22 AMERICAN LOYALTY, 

compared it to the great Father of Waters himself: 
the Mississippi, before the Ohio enters it; the Mis- 
sissippi after the Missouri pours into its channel its 
mighty flood ; still the Mississippi as it deepens and 
widens in its progress to the Gulf, and opens up the 
interior of the continent to the world! 

And yet again, when I have thought how noise- 
lessly and unperceived the various materials were 
being prepared, and fitted for their final place and 
use, no other comparison occurred so appropriate 
as the manner in which the First Temple was reared : 

"No workman steel, no pond'rous axes rung; 
Like some tall palm the noiseless fabric sprung." 

The Union is but another name for our National 
Life and National Government, and, as I understand it, 
this is, of all earthly blessings that God gives to man, 
the hio-hest and the best.* I have somewhere read that 
the Cretans called Patriotism by a name which indi- 
cated a mother's love for her children, and when we 
remark the depth and tenderness of this affection I 
do not wonder! To lose a country is to lose a 
mother; to have no one to love and care for us the 
rest of our lives, and no one on whom to bestow our 

love. 

2. How carefully, therefore, should we estimate 
the value of this Union! 

*"The greatest engine of moral power known to human affairs, is an organized, 
prosperous State. All that man in his individual capacity can do — all that he can 
effect by his private fraternities, by his ingenious discoveries and wonders of art, or 
by his influence over others, is as nothing, compared with the collective, perpetu- 
ated influence on human affairs and human happiness, of a well constituted, power- 
ful Commonwealth ! " — Eyekett. 



AilERICAX LOYALTY. 23 

Measure it by wliat stauclard you will, whether as 
a work of science and art, as the key-stone of the 
authority of the State, as the conservator of all lower 
law, as a simple National economic necessity, or as an 
example to the world ; and you can not, you 
dare not, tell me how much it is worth in blood 
and treasure, just how^ much, and not a drop 
or a dollar more. "While the Union endures, all 
else of trial and calamity which can befal a nation 
may be remedied and borne ; when that Union is dis- 
solved, the internal peace, the vigorous growth and 
the prosperity of the States, and the welfare of their 
inhabitants are blighted forever." * 

3. We ought thoroughly to understand the nature 
of this Union. 

In what sense and to what extent the people 
of the United States are one, once the sub- 
ject of mere political speculation and j^arty declama- 
tion, is now a question of National life or death. 
From many things that I have heard and read during 
the last year, I very much fear that the real nature 
of our Government is not always as fully com23re- 
hended as it ought to be ;f and if- the old question of 
Federalism is to be fought over again. North as well 
as South, tlie sooner we know it, the better.;]; We 



* Everett. 

t Only, within the last week I see the New York World warning its Demo- 
cratic friends not to be led away by an over attachment to the Union ; and one of 
the editors of the New York Independent, reported as saying at Detroit, that we 
should talk less about the "Union" and more about the Republic. 

I Since the election the New York Neics announces that hereafter it will labor 
■'for the recognition of the independence and sovereignty of the States," a conyen- 
ient synonym for Treason and Disunion. 



24 AMERICANS" LOYALTY. 

Lave, for so long a time, taken it for granted that 
we know all about it, tliat it would almost seem as 
if we expected to have such knowledge by instinct ; so 
that of late, perhaps, we have begun to appreciate some- 
what that strange remark of Jefferson, on hearing of 
Shay's Rebellion : " God forbid that we should ever be 
twenty years without a rebellion. The tree of hberty 
must be refreshed from time to time with the blood 
of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure!" 
Only another form, we would charitably hope, of 
saying that in times of rel^ellion the people are more 
likely to take an interest in the affairs of Govern- 
ment, and if so, the remark is not without good rea- 
son. When the storm rages, then is the time to 
watch where the knees of the ship are the weakest, 
and the seams open the widest, that we may brace 
the one and stop the other. If, hitherto, our love 
of the Union has been instinctive, hereafter let it be 

INTELLIGENT ! 

We ought especially to understand the nature of this 
Union at the present time, when errors are so rife and 
so insidious, and are coming in upon us from so many dif- 
ferent quarters. In the introduction to this discourse I 
quoted a specimen or two by way of giving point and in- 
terest to a discussion, which to some might otherwise 
have seemed only time and labor thrown away. Per- 
haps at this point we might, with some propriety, con- 
sider a few specimens more. I open a newspaper, and 
find an article from Amos Kendall. "Let it never 
be forgotten," says he, "that we are one people, and 
one Nation, only so far as the Constitution makes us 
oner And where, pray, was the Union hefore the 



AMERICAN LOYALTY. 25 

Constitution? I open a Southern Review, and find 
Dr. Palmer sneering at tlie doctrine that " The Union is 
more than a league of States," as " an exploded political 
heresy."* I am anxious to know whether Washington 
was a heretic, and who was the daring Gushing that 
applied the torpedo! I take up the Chicago Plat- 
form and there read, among such a tissue of falsehoods, 
as was never before presented to an intelligent peo- 
ple, of a "Union under the Constitution!" I read 
again of " four years failure to restore the Union ;" 
and remember Senator Seward's rebuke of the rebel 
Mason for using similar language in Congress: "Not 
restore^ Sir, but pkeseeve!" We, the people, made 
the Union ; only we, the people, in Convention assem- 
bled, can abrogate it and break it up. So said 
Washington ; so said Webster ; so in the days of Nul- 
lification said the MicJimond Enquirer^ and stigma- 
tized the contrary doctrine as treason. But again I 
read the Platform ! Alas ! there is no hope what- 
ever for the restoration of the Union ! Not by 
war; "hostilities" must cease. '■''Peaceahle'''' means 



* General Pinckney, of South Carolina, thought otherwise ; first quoting the 
words of Madison : " I hold it for a fundamental point, that an individual inde- 
pendence of the States is utterly irreconcilable with the idea of an aggregate sove- 
reignty." — (Mad. Papers, page 631.) He adds: "The separate independence and 
individual sovereignty of the several States were never thought of by the enlight- 
ened band of patriots who framed the Declaration. The several States are not 
even mentioned by name in any part of it, — as if it was intended to impress this 
maxim on Americans, that our freedom and independence arose from our Union, and 
that without it we could neither be free nor independent. Let us then consider 
all attempts to weaken this Union, by maintaining that each State is separately 
and individually independent, as a species of political heresy which can never 
benefit us, but may bring on us the most serious distresses. — (Elliott's Debates, 
IV, page 301.) That State Rights should swallow up United States' Rights is 
simply ridiculous. 



26 AMERICAN LOYALTY. 

must be employed, and these only; our only hope is 
for "peace!" But on what basis? On the basis of 
" tlie Union as the sole condition of peace % " No ! 
that is sound doctrine, come from where it will ; but 
" on the basis of the Federal Union of the States ! " 
The Union of the Declaration of Independence; the 
Union of the Constitution is to be considered as at 
an end^ and instead of the Union of the People, 
there is to be a Union of the States ! Instead of 
the Constitution we are to go back to the old clumsy 
contrivance repudiated by our fathers, the Confedera- 
tion, and become Confederate States ourselves. 

"It cannot be that the Chicago Platform meant 
that!" methinks I hear the exclamation from some of 
my hearers. Yes it did, if it meant anything ! " Cer- 
tainly, I did not so understand it, when I voted for it ! " 
Of course not, or you would be just as much 
a traitor to the true Union as any rebel at the South. 
Part of your thanksgiving as a good and true 
man, this day, should be, that if you did not see it, 
the great majority of the religious, intelligent, patriotic, 
native-born people of the country did. Otherwise, at 
the recent Presidential election, so far as your vote 
was concerned, it would have been " all over with 
the Republic." 

The great controversy now at issue between the 
rebel Confederates and the loyal Union men, narrows 
itself down . to this :' Is there a Union, or is there 
not? Is it a Union of States as in the old Confed- 
eration, or is it "a Union of all the People of all 
the States," as in the Constitution? If it is a Union 
of the States, then, for the time being, the Union is: 



AMERICAN LOYALTY. 21 

apparently destroyed ;* but if it is a Union of tlie peo- 
ple, then the Union still lives ! Yes, and it will con- 
tinue to live ! As I read the signs of the times the 
history of Secession will be that predicted by Gene- 
ral Jackson of Nullification ! " As the authors 
of the first attack on the Constitution of your coun-- 
try, you will be stigmatized when dead, and dishonored 
and scorned while you live. Its destroyers you cannot 
be ! You may disturb its peace, you may inter- 
rupt the course of its prosperity, you may cloud 
its reputation for stability ; but its tranquillity will 
be restored, its prosperity will return, and the stain 
upon its National character will be transferred and 
remain as an eternal blot on the memory of those 
who caused the disorder ! " 

As the Old Continental Congress in its appeal 
to the States, September 23, 1779, declared that "the 
period had passed when honest men could doubt 
of the success of the Revolution," so in a similar 
manner are we called by the Proclamation of the 
President, to give thanks that God has begun to 
afford us "reasonable hopes of an ultimate and happy 
deliverance from all our dangers and afilictions ! " 

More than once in the history of the world have 
other nations undergone the same process through 
which we are now going, and it has been seen that 
the trials of a Nation are in proportion to its des- 
tinies, that "governments corrupted by vice have been 
restored by righteousness." Once before, when in the 



* Apparently, I say, not really. Uad the rebels taken one State more with 
them, and deprived us of the Constitutional two-thirds, there might have been a, 
technical question raised at this point. 



28 AMERICAN LOYALTY. 

midst of tlie fog of treason and rebellion, we had 
lost our latitude and longitude, we went back to the 
Declaration of Independence to take a new reckon- 
ing, and now, since this recent triumphant and glo- 
rious election in favor of freedom, we are about to 
do so again. 

The articles of Confederation, as we have seen, did 
not rest on the old Declaration at all, and none 
knew that better than their author. They were 
swept away because they were built upon the sand. 
The Constitution, for the most part, vjcis placed upon 
the Declaration, and hence our unparalleled prosperity. 
The single exception, however, was Slavery — and hence 
all our trouble ! ''' Once more the people have a two- 
thirds majority in Congress, and they mean to lay the 
Constitution four-square upon the Declaration, 
the length, the breadth, and the height thereof 

EQUAL ! 

The old Independence Bell, in Philadelphia, which 
bears the signij&cant inscription — " Proclaim Liberty 
throughout all the Land, unto all the inhabitants 
thereof," if I have heard the story aright, " Cracked the 
very first time it rung." Significant omen, indeed ! 
As if God would not permit it to ring out a lie a 
second time ! But, 

"The thoughts of men are wulened with the process of the suns!" 

It would seem from the present indications of Provi- 
dence as if the old bell ought to be recast — yea! as 



* Yale students -will never forget Judge Daggett's sarcastic reading of that 
clause of the Constitution. — " Three -ffths of all other persons." 



AMERICAN LOYALTY. 29 

if it had been recast already, and that we were this 
day having the fii'st pull at the rope ! The time of 
conflict, we trust, is well nigh over. With Mr. Lincoln 
to set us an example of magnanimity, and General 
Grant of equinamity — by the blessing of God we 
shall gain such a victory for free institutions as the 
world has never seen. We shall take a new lease of 
National life. We shall gain a new halo of National 
glory, whose light shall shine from the Atlantic to 
the Pacific shores and throughout the world ! * * 

Glory to God in the highest ! that He is thus 
"restoring our Judges as at the first, and our coun- 
sellors as at the beginning," and that now at length 
the foul blot is to be effaced from our escutcheon, 
and we are to be called "the Commonwealth of 
Kighteousness." 

I, too, believe in "The Unioi^ as it was!" I 
take it out of the mouth of those who have made 
it a false rallying cry, in favor of Slavery, in the 
recent campaign, and make it a rallying cry for all 
futui*e time for Liberty ! Liberty and Ukiois' ; one 

AND inseparable ! 



APPENDI X A. 



Vallandigliam, tlie man who in seeking the title 
'of "Martyr," only achieved that of "Traitor," in 
his famous address last summer to a few foolish 
students of the Michigan University, who went over 
to hear him at Windsor, Canada West, just as dis- 
tinctly and formally repudiated the word Loyalty as 
his worthy friend, Fernando Wood. 

Lest the opinion of a " Union Man " should go for 
naught on this point, let me here quote the words 
of one, who, next to the impeachment of his ortho- 
doxy, would have resented that of his Democracy : 

^''Loyalty is the very term to describe the senti- 
ment that coi'dially acknowledges the claims of our 
Nation upon our love and ser^dce. It has indeed 
signified, almost exclusively, the fidelity of a subject 
to his prince. * * Loyalty, with ns, is more 
agreeable to the etymology of the term. It is a 
reverent attachment to law, emanating from th'e 
people according to the Constitution. Our Magis- 
trates, it is true, are, during their term of office, 
representatives of the law, and, as such, should! 



AMERICAN LOYALTY. 31 

receive our venerating obedience ; nay, very grave 
must be tlie provocation, before we 

" 'bate 
The place its honor for the holder's sake;" 

but our loyalty cannot be given to them, because 
they are the creatures of the popular will. Our 
only sovereign, under God, is the people acting 
legally, and, to them, while just in the exercise of 
their constitutional sovereignty, is due that fealty 
which political propriety, with the Word of God, 
commands from us to "the higher powers" of the 
land. Hence, the loyalty of an American citizen, 
is of a more intellectual character, and, therefore, 
more difficult to be maintained. The power of a 
king is a visible, tangible object, and men can 
regard him as a man ; but our people are such an 
immense multitude, it is not easy to regard them 
in their aggregate caj)acity, except as a theoretical 
idea. ^ * 'The law is the result of the general 
suffrage;' * * 'in the formation of which, each 
citizen, as the constituent part of the legislating 
people, has a share: so that as far as his vote has 
effect, he is his own sovereign, and a law unto 
himself.' * * Why should not such loyalty be 
cherished? Will not the issue of our ballot-box 
come nearer the right than the will of a crowned 
despot, or of an hereditary nobility, or of any 
privileged class? — Phi Beta Kappa Oration of Dr. 
JBeihune^ July^ 19, 1849, 'pages 12 and 13. 



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